Update #2: Your Personal Inquiry

My personal inquiry is how to achieve more consistency with technology integration in SAS’s Elementary School’s (ES) 1:1 ipad program.  Over the past four years, teachers in the SAS ES have expanded their repertoire with digital tools and focused on the creativity aspect.  Their pedagogy around tech integration is sound, students use ipads and laptops to create content instead of consuming it.  Additionally, many teachers are conscious of integrating technology in a meaningful way that directly relates to the content they are teaching.  Even though great strides have been made in pedagogy, the learning ‘app-tivities’ are not always connected directly to a standard.  While I don’t believe this is essential for all tech integration lessons, having technology integration standards would definitely help achieve some consistency.  I appreciate Dion Norman’s perspective that he shared in an interview with Michael Boll (2015).  Dion believes that by creating tech integration standards, a technology culture will be embedded in an organization.  It makes me think that the work on Technology Power Standards that James Shin-Gay and I have been leading with our EdTech team just might help the SAS ES achieve more consistency with technology integration in our 1:1 ipad program.       

Blog post #4 Leadership practices and beliefs

When listening to Eric Sheninger's interview (Wallis, 2016) on leadership,  I noted that he referred to the importance of leaders maintaining flexibility and allowing for teacher autonomy.  By doing so, teachers and administrators can reflect, learn, grow, and improve.  I believe that these aspects can support effective problem solving and lead to results.  By providing teachers with a level of autonomy and a voice in changes at their school, they might be more likely to engage in discussions around the change.  Since teachers themselves are responsible for implementing these changes, it is crucial to hear their perspectives in solving any issues regarding the innovation.  At the same time, a certain level of flexibility is also required by leaders to be able to listen to the feedback from teachers and possibly make any potential adjustments.

For me, as an Educational Technology Coach, I have wondered how to achieve consistency in our 1:1 ipad program. My support structure has had to be flexible (e.g. lead, co-teach, support as seen in the image below) when working with almost 25 different teachers who have various teaching styles, interests, comfort levels with tech, and at a variety of stages of integration.  While this flexibility is extremely supportive of individual teacher needs, I am not 100% confident that we are achieving consistency.   

Blog Post #2: Technology Plan

If I was in charge of developing the technology plan for my school, I would feel the least confident in implementing tools.  For me, researching and deciding on which tools are best would be more challenging and a bit out of my comfort zone.  Knowing that a large portion of the budget for the plan will go to funding these devices adds extra pressure to get it right.  Arguably though, if I were to build the best team possible, they would be able to support in this area.  As Mike Pelletier states in his interview (Boll, 2015), if he had to choose to start with people or the process first, he would build his team first.  Another point in the interview that rings true for me is the importance of building a strong foundation first before even thinking about purchasing devices.  I appreciate Pelletier’s (Boll, 2015) reference to bridging the implementation gap.  To increase the likelihood of success when developing a technology plan, bridging the implementation gap for my team might look something like what is pictured in the image below.

Blog Post #1: School change and leadership

My experiences with school change have been as a classroom teacher piloting 1:1 ipads and also as an ed tech coach supporting teachers with implementing a 1:1 ipad program.  For me, having the experience of learning how to integrate ipads into the curriculum as a teacher has, without a doubt, helped me better support other teachers in this same endeavor.  In an interview with Dr. Douglas Reeves (2014), he commented on the single most crucial variable in influencing changes in teachers’ practices is other teachers, specifically, direct observations of other teachers modeling effective practices.  This factor has greatly influenced my belief around how to lead technology integration with my teams.  Essentially, every time I enter a classroom to teach or co-teach a technology integration lesson, teachers are receiving professional learning.  They have the opportunity to build their knowledge base around technology integration and see it applied with students in direct context to their curriculum.  Dr. Reeves (2014) also commented on the relationship between a leader’s actions and teachers’ practices.  He identified three key leader actions that will enable teachers to be better, faster, and more effective on their professional learning journey (see image).  As a leader in establishing a successful technology integration curriculum for a 1:1 ipad program,  I appreciate the need to make time for more collaboration and learn alongside my colleagues.  One area pointed out by Dr. Reeves (2014) in his interview that I could benefit from is clearly defining what quality, productive, and successful collaboration looks like, sounds like, and feels like with my teams.  

References Icon made by [Madebyoliver] from www.flaticon.com

Icon made by [Freepik] from www.flaticon.com Icon made by [Freepik] from www.flaticon.com Reeves, Douglas. (2014, August 5). Leading Change for Teachers with Dr Douglas Reeves [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVok-O9u4DE

A Sea Animal Inquiry

A Peaceful Protest

Mr. Lewis's KG class inquired into sea animals.  They were interested in learning:

• What does my animal need to survive?
• Where does my animal live?
• How can it live there?
• How can we help these animals survive?

To culminate their learning, the students chose to lead a peaceful protest and share with others the importance of not polluting the oceans.